1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a ballast control card, and more particularly, to a ballast control circuit provided on a through-slot wave solderable daughter card that is vertically mountable on a mother board.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic ballasts for controlling fluorescent or high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps usually require electronics necessary for preheating the lamp filaments, striking the lamp, driving the lamp to a given power, detecting lamp fault conditions, and safely deactivating the circuit.
Electronic ballasts for gas discharge circuits have come into widespread use because of the availability of power MOSFET switching devices and insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) that can replace previously used power bipolar switching devices. A number of integrated circuits (ICs) have been devised for driving gates of power MOSFETs or IGBTs in electronic ballasts. Examples include the IR2155, IR2157, and IR21571 products sold by International Rectifier Corporation and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,545,955 and 6,211,623, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.